SteelAsia was established in 1965 by Benito Yao and Go Kim Pah, the latter being the founder of
Equitable Banking Corporation. The company was founded as the Island Metal Manufacturing Corporation setting its first steel mill in
Quezon City with the capacity of 30,000 tons per year. In the 1980s, Benjamin Yao took over SteelAsia's operations. From the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, SteelAsia expanded its
reinforcing bar production capacity; from producing 279,000 tons of rebar in 2006 to 1.2 million tons in 2013, securing almost half of the rebar market share in the Philippines. In 2014, it began operations of two steel mills in
Mindanao, to serve the Mindanao region. The company has also lobbied against the proliferation of
induction furnace produced steel which it views as substandard and a detriment to the domestic steel industry. SteelAsia also started work on the
Lemery Works which would be the first steel beam manufacturing facility in the Philippines upon its completion in 2023. SteelAsia Manufacturing Corporation's
Compostela, Cebu plant, CEO Ben Yao & Rafael Hidalgo exported P1.8 billion (35,000
metric tons) worth of
green steel, high-strength rebar to a Canadian subway system in
Vancouver.
Acciona designed the 3-kilometer section of the
Ontario Line subway. "We also supplied the bar for the
Cebu–Cordova Link Expressway and the contractor was Acciona," Benjamin Yao said. Further, it obtained an P8.3-billion loan for its P18-billion
steel mill in
Lemery, Batangas. ==Steel mills==